Mujahedin Khalq

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

PMOI crows … but probably not for long!

The People’s Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI alias, aka MKO, alias or NRCI) have been removed from the list of organizations considered terrorist by the European Union. Just when the U.S. confirmed on their own … who can understand.

It is true that the decision to withdraw from the European list is motivated solely on technical issues and form such aspects of rights of defense.

But now, France has appealed this decision and the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs reiterated that for it, PMOI did have its place on this list.

Moreover, the text that was adopted makes it clear that several countries among the 27 "are not convinced that the Mujahedin were away from terrorism". It will be recalled that the process of withdrawal, the Swiss and the French had launched new accusations against PMOI.

It is therefore likely that PMOI will return to this famous list in July. Unfortunately, in the meantime, it has had time to recover the many assets it owns and those it had received from Saddam Hussein as a salary for being executive of his dirty works …

February 7, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The MKO movement is in decline

Response to Sergio D’Elia, secretary of Hands Off Cain”, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (1)

Caro D’Elia,
Our group had no intention of continuing to write about Mujahedin-e Khalq (MKO), but encouraged by your recent e-mail we feel obliged to make a few points. In principle, we are not against the removal of MKO from the list of terrorists. Indeed, the movement is already in decline .Since the late nineties the internal dissent in Camp Ashraf is increasing and with the fall of the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, the MKO will be deprived of their basic logistics. However, there are things that continue to preoccupancy.

First, we believe that the leadership of MKO should answer the killing of civilian Kurds. I’m sorry, in fact, contradicting, but under Saddam the MKO were involved directly in the massacre of the Kurdish population. We have received confirmation and documentation of what we are saying by the Kurdish Democratic Party and by independent Tolerancy International, based in Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan) and headed by a former minister of the autonomous Kurdish government, Hussein Sinjari.

Secondly, we are sure that the meetings in Europe with several supporters and / or members of MKO led you to find them available and courteous. The image that, in fact, the movement has manufactured in the West is a democratic organization. But the situation is different at Camp Ashraf. Some members of MKO have in fact discovered at their expense, the detention camps in which under the leadership of the movement they were subjected to torture, often led to death. Members of MKO are victims of their own cynical leadership. Shown below the records of known and authoritative organization Human Rights Watch on this topic.

The third point is that, as you say it, the movement does not have a libertarian government structure and in light of the facts that we have listed above and that we are committed to detail, are needed to reconstruct the truth about the movement. Surprisingly when Italian parliamentary delegations – and Sen. Perduca – go on a visit to Camp Ashraf and then write in the Italian media praises to movement who do not know at all.
Another point which we would highlight was well summarized by a message left to us by a supporter of MKO in Italy:”It is not far the day when Iran and the Iranians celebrate their freedom and democracy under the flag of the Mojahedin and their president Mrs. Maryam Rajavi.”This concerns us. We want a free Iran, celebrating their freedom under the flag of their country, not a movement, and having as president a leader elected by democratic elections.

For ease of reading we will share this letter / document into four parts. In this letter, write the abuses at Camp Ashraf (which will be divided into two parts), providing evidence. In the coming days, we will post additional material on the killing of Kurds and the armed forces and American civilian, take our information directly from the Department of State. The material here is, we were given by Human Rights Watch and the complete document in English of 28 pages is also available on-line.

Brief Background of MKO
The MKO was founded in 1965 by three student from the University of Tehran, Mohammad Hanifnezhad, Saeed Mohsen and Asghar Badizadegan. The three believed that a peaceful resistance against the Pahlavi government does not lead to any result, and that only armed struggle could fall to the monarchy. Their ideology, however, was based on an interpretation of Islam compatible with the Marxism. during 70s, thirteen members of MKO and Giodania go into Lebanon to be trained . The friendship with Yasser Arafat, remains over the years.
With the revolution of 1979, Massoud Rajavi emerged as a leader of the movement. Immediately after the revolution, MKO supported the revolution but after a while Khomeini excluded them from the division of power. It, therefore, led to an intense rivalry between the leadership of MKO and the regime of Iran. In 1981, members of MKO launched a campaign of armed attacks against the Iranian government. The same year, Massoud Rajavi moved to Paris. In 1986, France asked Rajavi to leave the country and find a new ally: the dictator Saddam Hussein. (In movies we are in possession of Rajavi called Saddam”the big boss”).

The “ideological revolution” of the MKO
In 1985, Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Azdanlu got married. Massoud and Maryam Rajavi became co-leader of the movement. They announced the marriage is an”ideological revolution”resulted from tremendous sacrifices made by both spouses. Maryam was first married to the deputy of Massoud, Mehdi Abrishamchi. The”ideological revolution”of Rajavi was imposed on the movement and required”sacrifice”. First, the leadership has asked its members to divorce by their husbands and wives, ordering”mass divorce.”

In the book “Memoirs of an Iranian Rebel,”the former member of MKO, Masoud Banisadr (not to be confused with the former president Abolhasan Banisadr) fled from the movement in 1996, recounts a meeting for senior officers of the movement page. 37 of the English version.

The first thing I was required to do in Baghdad was watch a videotape of an ideological meeting for “executive and high-ranking members.” The meeting, called “Imam Zaman,” (in the Shiite faith is the hidden Imam), started with a simple question: “To whom do we owe all our achievements and everything that we have?”… Rajavi did not claim, as I thought he might, to be the Imam of our times, but merely said we owed everything to Imam Zaman… The object was to show that we could reach Tehran if we were more united with our leader, as he was with Imam Zaman and God.
“He (Rajavi) was ready to sacrifice everything he had (which in fact meant all of us!) for God, asserting that the only thing on his mind was doing the will of God,….we were expected to draw the conclusion that no “buffer” existed between Rajavi and Imam Zaman; yet there was a buffer between ourselves and him [Rajavi] … which prevented us from seeing him clearly. This “buffer” was our weakness. If we could recognize that, we would see why and how we had failed in Operation Forogh [Eternal Light] and elsewhere. Massoud and Maryam [Rajavi] had no doubt that the buffer was in all our cases our existing spouse…

In the next letter, provide the following themes:
“Birth of dissent in Camp Ashraf”
“Violation and Abuse of Human Rights in Camp Ashraf”
“Testimonies collected by Human Rights Watch.”

Anticipation of the next letter:
Testimony of Sayed Amir Mowaseghi, collected by Human Rights Watch
Sayed Amir Mowaseghi entered a part of MKO in 1984 and was imprisoned by the Iranian government from 1984-1987. After his release, went to Pakistan, from where he could reach Iraq and join forces in the MK 1988.Nel in June 2001, had decided to leave the movement, but he was not allowed. A session of court”was agreed in September 2001 with the presence of Maryam and Masoud Rajavi, who have not granted permission to leave the MKO.

Immediately after it happened as testified:
“I was brought to a gathering of about 600 people. I was dragged into a crowd, I was taken to blows, kicked, verbally abused. I was then led in a caravan, which they called Bangala, I was confined in isolation until 2 June, 2002, and then I was handed over to Iraqi government forces (of Saddam Hussein). The Iraqi forces have put me in the prison of Abu Ghraib, I was then sent back to Iran on 18 March 2003.”

ANNA-MAHJAR of Barducci – Secretary of the”Arab Liberal Democrats

http://www.agenziaradicale.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7265&Itemid=52

Translated by Nejat Society

February 4, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Iran Group in Iraq Poses Thorny Issue for U.S.

many years, the roughly 3,500 members of the Iranian dissident group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) living quietly in Iraq drew little attention. But now the relatively obscure group is at the center of an increasingly contentious argument among leaders in Baghdad, Tehran and Washington, where decisions the new White House makes about the rebels will probably set the tone for U.S. relations with Iran in the near term.

The simmering issue of the MEK’s fate flashed into the open earlier this month when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unexpectedly declared that the group would no longer be allowed to remain in Iraq. Shortly after that, Maliki’s national security adviser, Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, said the MEK’s camp roughly 40 miles north of Baghdad would be disbanded within two months, declaring during an appearance in Tehran that Iraq would not play host to threats toward its neighbor.

The issue grew more complicated on Jan. 26, when the European Union removed the MEK from its list of terrorist organizations, a roster that includes organizations such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The E.U. move, which came after a long lobbying campaign by the MEK’s supporters in Europe, sparked an outcry in Tehran. About 300 people were gathered around noon on Wednesday in front of the British Embassy in Tehran to protest the E.U. decision. Some in the crowd threw stones at the embassy, while others held up shoes on sticks in a show of deep disrespect in the Middle East.

"What people side with the enemy and kill their own people in a war?" said demonstrator Sina Zamanian, 17, referring to the MEK’s alliance with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, which led them to settle in Iraq. "They are the worst kind of opportunistic terrorists and should be forever marked as such."

Nevertheless, some in Baghdad are calling for the group to be allowed to remain in Iraq, or at least to not be turned over to Iran, for political reasons. "We have to deal with this issue very delicately," says Ayad Jamal al-Deen, an Iraqi parliamentarian aligned with Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "I’m not here to defend this organization. I have no interest in them. But I am looking out for the Iraqi national interest." Al-Deen and other Iraqi political figures see the group essentially as a bargaining chip with Iran, one of the few Iraq holds against its powerful neighbor. They argue that simply shuttering the MEK camp as Iran demands squanders what precious little leverage Iraq has against Iran. Al-Deen adds, "In my opinion, Iraq has only this card, MEK, to pressure Iran."

At the moment, however, the MEK’s ability to remain in Iraq depends on the will of the Americans. The Bush White House continued to use the military to protect the MEK at Camp Ashraf despite its current status as a terrorist organization on the U.S. list and periodic complaints by the emerging Iraqi government and Tehran, which says the group is still involved in subversive activity inside Iran. Outwardly, U.S. officials have said disbanding the camp would be in contravention of international humanitarian law because the group’s members are likely to face persecution in Iran or Iraq. But many Iraqis and Iranians suspect that the U.S. keeps the camp open for intelligence purposes, since the MEK’s spy network played a key role in uncovering Iran’s secret uranium-enrichment program in 2002.

Maliki appears intent on pressing the issue anew with the Obama Administration, which will have to decide soon whether to keep offering U.S. protection to the group or to yield to Iraqi demands to close Camp Ashraf. If the White House allows the Iraqi government to close the camp, the Iranian leadership is likely to see the move as a sign that the new Administration is eager to ease tensions between Washington and Tehran. A continuation of the status quo, however, could chill Obama’s early outreach efforts.

At Camp Ashraf, MEK members simply wait for word on what may happen to them as discussions continue in Baghdad, Tehran and Washington. Shahriar Kia, a spokesman for the group, says a closure of the camp would be a disaster for those living in what amounts to a protective quarantine for roughly the past seven years. "Closing down Camp Ashraf and the displacement of its residents, who are protected by the Geneva Conventions, against their will is a war crime," says Kia. "This will cause a humanitarian catastrophe."
— With reporting by Tariq Anmar in Baghdad
By Mark Kukis / Baghdad

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1875917,00.html

February 1, 2009 0 comments

Belgium

Belgian MP: PMOI is a sect

G.P. Put on line 27/01/2009 – For Josy Dubié (Belgian MP), there is not a doubt that PMOI is "a sect". The Belgian senator draws from his memories Josy Dubié :"They[PMOI/MKO] are still as sectarian as before", international reporter to the RTBF to affirm it. At the end of the Iraq-Iran war, they are the combatants of this organization which Saddam Hussein had sent like "flesh with canon" at the time of the battle of Mehran, in 1989. The treatment that Moujahidine held for their own troops, the women like the men, and that they applied to their Iranian prisoners were abominable, explains in substance Josy Dubié. "I know them from inside" , continues the senator, " and I can say to you that their behavior is to be brought closer to that of the members of Scientologie". Didn’t they evolve since the Eighties? Josy Dubié does not believe in it at all. "They are still as sectarian as before", he ensures. "However, there is in Iran an opposition much more democratic than that of Moujahidine of the people, the laic opponents, the members of the Communist party Toudeh, the sympathizers of the former Prime Minister Mossadegh ". And Josy estimates that one should not count on OMPI, which " do not represent anything the whole in Iran".

Lalibre.be

January 31, 2009 0 comments

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Iraq resolute to expel MKO despite EU decision

Baghdad is determined over expulsion of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) from Iraq despite the EU decision to remove the group from its blacklist, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) political adviser told ISNA on Monday.
The European Union decision over removal of the MKO from its terrorist blacklist has no impact on Iraqi government’s determination to expel the group, Mohsen Hakim said.
The MKO is a terrorist organization under the UN and Security Council resolutions before and after the 11 September attacks and according to Iraq’s constitutions support for terrorism is prohibited and illegal, he added.
The members of MKO are neither war captives nor refugees thus have no legal position in Iraq, he explained.
According to Hakim 500 of MKO members have returned to Iran and 914 have European countries’ residence permit and Iraq is negotiating to get them out of the country.
Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie in his recent visit to Tehran emphasized Camp Ashraf, the MKO residential place, will be closed forever in two months and the members will leave to leave the country.
The EU countries have reached a preliminary agreement to remove (MKO) off an EU list of banned terrorist groups, their foreign ministers, however, meet on January 26 for a final approval on the issue.
The name of the guerilla has remained in the US and Canada blacklists.
The MKO founded in 1960s has carried out assassinations and terrorist attacks against Iranian high-ranking officials including Judiciary Chief Mohammad Hossein Beheshti, President Mohammad Ali Rajayee and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar and also civilians. The terrorist efforts have killed 3000 in Iran in 1980s. It has also betrayed the nation by helping Saddam against Iran during 1980-88 Iraq’s imposed war.

January 28, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Europe may find itself providing refuge for MKO Terrorists

EU removes Iranian group from terrorism list

The new status of the Mujahedin Khalq organization, which seeks to overthrow the Iranian government, is likely to complicate international diplomacy with Tehran.
Reporting from Paris and Beirut — The European Union on Monday announced the removal of a high-profile Iranian opposition group from its list of terrorists, a victory for a movement that European governments have described as a dangerous sect and prosecuted on terrorism charges.
The change in the status of the Mujahedin Khalq organization, or MKO, which seeks to overthrow the Iranian government, is likely to complicate attempts by the international community to reach a diplomatic settlement with Tehran over a range of issues.
The decision, announced at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, results from recent legal and diplomatic developments combined with intense lobbying by the group, whose leader, Maryam Rajavi, lives in France.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement decrying the ruling as a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, which requires governments to freeze the funds and halt the activities of those involved in acts of terrorism.
"The MKO’s hands are stained with the blood of thousands of innocent Iranians and non-Iranians," said the statement, according to the Iranian Students News Agency. "The delisting is invalid and condemned."
Analysts said European leaders probably acted out of diplomatic expediency because of the impending expulsion from Iraq of nearly 3,000 members of the opposition group’s military wing, who once fought against their homeland on behalf of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Europe may find itself providing refuge for some of those fighters, and could not do so if the terrorist label persisted.
Iran quickly signaled that the move could complicate deliberations with the West, which wants Tehran to curtail sensitive aspects of its nuclear program and rein in support for militant groups opposed to Israel.
"The EU plans to use the MKO as leverage against Iran in the nuclear talks," said an editorial Monday in the conservative daily Politics of the Day. "The EU should tell the world why it blacklists Lebanese and Palestinian resistance groups fighting Israeli aggression but clears the MKO, which has committed countless crimes in Iran and Iraq."
Protesters in Tehran gathered around the French and German embassies to denounce the decision, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency, demanding the "extradition" of MKO members "who have killed many of our children and families."
Opposition leader Rajavi in turn described the decision as a "stinging defeat for the European policy of complacency" toward the Iranian regime. "The inscription of the Iranian resistance on the blacklist has helped prolong the regime of religious fascism in Iran," she said, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
The MKO remains on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, a designation it acquired in 1997. European leaders made it clear Monday that they do not view the organization as fully rehabilitated. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and several colleagues warned that the MKO could be again designated as a terrorist group depending on its activities and on a French appeal of a Dec. 4 decision by an EU court to unfreeze nearly $9 million of the group’s assets.
The MKO was founded in the 1960s as a radical and often violent guerrilla group opposed to the U.S.-backed monarchy of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi. It took part in the 1979 revolution that ousted him.
But the group quickly fell out with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the rest of the country’s clerical leadership. Many of its supporters were jailed, and the MKO launched a campaign of bombings against leaders of the revolutionary government.
During the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, the group fought alongside Hussein’s troops against the Islamic Republic, a move that earned it the anger of many Iranians. Iraqi Kurds allege that the MKO helped crush an uprising against Hussein after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Several thousand members live in Camp Ashraf, a desolate patch of desert and tumbleweed near Baqubah, Iraq. A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch said the camp was rife with abuse, citing evidence of "prolonged incommunicado and solitary confinement" as well as "beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution, and torture" against members who don’t conform to the group’s sometimes bizarre rules and rituals.
Its blend of Islamist and Marxist ideologies alienates both supporters and opponents of the Islamic Republic. Iran watchers in Europe and the U.S. say the organization has little public appeal. But it mounted an all-out lobbying campaign that won over legislators, especially in Britain, according to Farhad Khosrokhavar, an Iranian French expert on Islamic extremism.
"They have been very successful at giving a positive picture of themselves in Europe," Khosrokhavar said in a telephone interview. "I think many people have been duped by them, especially in the British Parliament."
Khosrokhavar predicted that the EU decision would only increase Iran’s animosity toward the West.
"The Islamic Republic will be stronger in its suspicion of the West and European Union," he said. "My guess is they will be angry, and the one issue where they will be even more inflexible is the nuclear issue."
Rajavi and other leaders were arrested in 2003, when more than 1,000 police officers raided their compound outside Paris. France’s top anti-terrorism judge charged that they were involved in terrorism in Iran and plotting violence in Europe as well.
The investigation, which was assisted by the FBI in the United States, did not turn up powerful proof. A lawyer for the group said Monday that prosecutors should throw out the still-pending case.
"One finds oneself confronting a judicial dossier that is empty of substance after the removal from the list," said the lawyer, Patrick Badouin, according to French reports.
daragahi@latimes.com
Times staff writer Sebastian Rotella in Madrid contributed to this report.

By Achrene Sicakyuz and Borzou Daragahi

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-opposition27-2009jan27,0,1790285.story

January 28, 2009 0 comments

Iran

Iran devising plan to try Mojahedin Khalq members

Iran devising plan to try Mojahedin Khalq members as EU ministers endorse the terrorist group
Iran is mulling over a plan to take terrorist MKO members to court following the European Union’s decision to lift a ban on the group.
Iranian lawmakers are devising a plan to try the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) members who have taken an active part in terrorist activities against the country.
“The plan was conceived after the European Union decided to remove the MKO from its blacklist, prompting the Islamic Republic to take the required steps on the issue,”Member of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) Heshmatollah told Mehr news agency on Monday.
According to the lawmaker, the trials would be held either in the Islamic Republic or outside the country. The MKO members who have not participated in the organization’s terrorist activities are allowed to return home, he added.
Earlier on Monday the EU removed the group from its blacklist, although the organization is recognized as a terrorist group by much of the international community, including the US.
The MKO is responsible for numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials. Iran has repeatedly called for the expulsion of the MKO members from Iraq, which has been housing them since 1986.
The Iraqi government, in response, has ordered the members to leave their headquarters, Camp Ashraf, and return to Iran or take refuge in a third country. Iraq blames the group for conducting a significant role in destabilizing the Baghdad government.
Several members of the group have now defected from the organization and returned to Iran. According to a May 2005 Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group imprisons defectors and even tortures them.
Defectors accuse the group of resorting to mind control in an effort to brainwash supporters and to establish a cult mindset among members.

January 27, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

EU ministers endorse ‘terrorist group’

The European Union has agreed to remove the notorious Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) from its list of banned terrorist groups.
EU foreign ministers approved a decision to remove the outlawed terrorist group from a list that includes Palestinian Hamas and Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, an unnamed European official was quoted by Reuters as saying.
The group also known as the”Rajavi cult”named after its leader Maryam Rajavi stepped up efforts to be excluded from the list in 2008.
In November Rajavi met with members of the German Parliament in a bid to rally support for the removal of the group from the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations.
The European Court in Luxembourg ruled in December that the EU was wrong to keep the group’s assets frozen.
“What we are doing today is abiding by the resolution of the European court,”EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters just before the ministers finalize the decision in a meeting in Brussels.
The MKO, which has been listed as a terrorist organization in Iran and the United States, has a long and bloody history of targeting Iranian civilians and government officials.
Incidents linked with the group include the June 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party in which 72 high-ranking Iranian officials including judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mohmmad Beheshti, and tens of Majlis deputies were killed.
In the following August the group assassinated President Mohmmad Ali Rajae’i, Prime Minister Javad Bahonar and National Police Chief Ali Dastgerdi at the Prime Ministry building.
The MKO also assisted Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in the massacre of thousands of innocent Iraqis and is responsible for several acts of terror in Iran including the 1994 bombing of a revered Shia shrine in Mashhad, eastern Iran.
In 2003, French anti-terrorist police arrested 165 members in Paris, including Maryam Rajavi, for ‘associating with wrongdoers in relation with a terrorist undertaking.’
More recently, around 10 members of the notorious organization were arrested in France and Switzerland on charges of money laundering on September 29, 2008.

January 27, 2009 0 comments

Iran

Protests in Tehran against EU

Protests in Tehran against EU removing PMOI group from terror list
Hundreds of Iranian students, pupils and families of veterans of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) staged a protest gathering in Tehran Sunday against the decision by European Union foreign ministers to remove the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) from their list of terrorist organizations.
The crowd first gathered in front of the French embassy in Tehran and shouted slogans against France and the EU for their intention to approve the decision in favour of the PMOI at a meeting Monday in Brussels.
The official news agency IRNA reported that a similar protest gathering was to be held later Sunday in front of the German embassy in Tehran but according to the demonstrators themselves, the next protest gathering would be on Monday in front of the British embassy.
The EU move followed a ruling by the European Court in Luxembourg, which in December said the EU was wrong to keep the PMOI’s assets frozen after it was taken off a British list of terrorist organizations.
Iran regards PMOI as a terror group due to its involvement in the assassinations of several high-ranking Iranian officials, including the president and prime minister in 1980.
After the group was expelled from France in the 1980s, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein allocated a military base to the PMOI near the border with Iran.
Before the ouster of Saddam, the PMOI frequently infiltrated Iranian territory, leading to clashes with Iranian forces and casualties on both sides.
Middle East

January 27, 2009 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Iranian Resistance Group a Source of Contention in Iraq

During his speech on New Year’s Day to celebrate the official transfer of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone to Iraqi control, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared Jan. 1 the “day of sovereignty” and congratulated his compatriots for having waited so long. He also warned that an Iranian resistance group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), would no longer be able to have a base on Iraqi territory.
To some Western observers in Baghdad, it seemed like an odd thing for al-Maliki to mention, given the more momentous theme of the day. The MEK is an obscure group known for launching attacks on Iran in the 1980s and ’90s, when Iraq and Iran were bitter, warring enemies. But since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the MEK has been stripped of its weapons, confined to its base at Camp Ashraf about 80 miles north of Baghdad and guarded by U.S. troops. The group is hardly an immediate threat to Iraqi security, or even particularly relevant to the challenges Iraq faces under the new U.S.-Iraq security pact.
But when the U.S. military formally transferred control of Camp Ashraf back to the Iraqi government on Jan. 1, the MEK’s fate suddenly became an issue. The group is a source of contention for Iran and the U.S., Iraq’s two biggest allies, who are increasingly vying for influence as Baghdad’s post–Saddam Hussein Shi’ite government asserts its independence. All three countries label the MEK a terrorist organization. Iran wants the group handed over for prosecution. But the U.S. has pledged to ensure the group’s rights under international law.
The question now isn’t just what to do with the 3,500 Iranians at Camp Ashraf — it’s also who decides their future. Past U.S. ties to the group suggest that the Geneva Convention isn’t the only reason Washington might not want to throw the MEK to the wolves just yet. But how deeply is Washington invested? The answer may lie in how Baghdad chooses to deal with the group.
Founded in Iran in the 1960s on an ideological platform merging Marxism and Islamism, the MEK worked alongside followers of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini to overthrow the shah in the 1979 Islamic revolution, and assisted in the ensuing U.S. embassy hostage crisis. But they clashed with Khomeini in the years that followed, leading to the killing, imprisonment and exile of thousands of the group’s members. In 1986 the MEK set up a base at Camp Ashraf, located in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province, and began receiving funding and protection from Saddam to launch attacks over the border into Iran.
Despite its position on the U.S. terrorist list since 1997, and reports by former members of abusive and cultlike practices at Ashraf, the MEK has gathered support from some surprising places abroad — especially since the U.S. invasion — by pitching itself as a viable opposition to the mullahs in Tehran. “They have been extremely clever and very, very effective in their propaganda and lobbying of members of Congress,” says Gary Sick, a Persian Gulf expert at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute and the author of All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter With Iran. “They get all sorts of people to sign their petitions. Many times the Congressmen don’t know what they’re signing.” But others, Sick adds, “are quite aware of the fact that this is a designated terrorist organization, and they are quite willing to look the other way for a group that they think is a democratic alternative to the Iranian regime.”
The group’s Paris-based umbrella organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has held fundraisers in Washington. One of the group’s former spokesmen, Alireza Jafarzadeh, now serves as a Fox News foreign affairs analyst. From Paris, the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, has waged an effective p.r. campaign, gathering a following of European MPs to support removal of the group from the E.U.’s terrorist list and to oppose Ashraf’s closure.
Even some Iraqis see value in keeping the camp intact. “We have many differences with Iran, and Iran is very deeply involved in Iraq, so I don’t think it’s wise to end the Iranian resistance,” said Salah al-Mutlaq, a Sunni member of parliament from the Iraqi National Dialogue Front. “For the Americans, surrendering the Mujahedin-e Khalq file to the Iraqi government is a big mistake.”
For the most part, however, the MEK is no more popular with the Iraqi population than it is with the central government. In his speech from the Green Zone on New Year’s Day, al-Maliki made it clear that the MEK would lose its protected status. “This group has been labeled a terrorist organization,” al-Maliki said. “It can no longer operate in Iraq after today because it has caused a political crisis that contradicts the constitution … We will never force any of these people to go back to their country … but Iraq cannot be a base for these people.”
The move to oust the MEK was anticipated, but the promise not to deport them to Iran was a welcome relief for the group’s supporters and human rights organizations. For months, the National Council of Resistance of Iran has led demonstrations in New York, Paris, Geneva and Washington to protest the possible transfer of Camp Ashraf’s residents to Iran. Al-Maliki’s decision not to hand them over may indicate a small U.S. victory.
While the U.S. government has remained relatively quiet on the Ashraf issue lately, Washington’s approach isn’t entirely passive. In a Jan. 1 press release, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad said an unspecified number of U.S. troops have remained at the camp since the formal handover of control to Iraq. “U.S. forces will maintain a presence at Camp Ashraf and will continue to assist the government of Iraq in carrying out its assurances of humane treatment of the residents of Camp Ashraf,” the release stated. The Iraqi government provided written assurances that the group would be treated in accordance with Iraqi law, and the U.S. government would remain involved in resolving the group’s future, according to the release. U.S. embassy officials declined to comment on what that future might look like.
Just two days after making his declaration to the MEK, al-Maliki left for a scheduled diplomatic visit to Iran — his fourth since taking office. The Iraqi Prime Minister was expected to try to ease fears that Iraq might be used as a base to attack Iran. He has pledged that won’t happen. But it remains uncertain as to what is in store for the MEK.
— With reporting by Mazin Ezzat / Baghdad

By Abigail Hauslohner – time.com

January 27, 2009 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts